


Breathe Again

by Secret Staircase (elwing_alcyone)



Category: Zero | Project Zero | Fatal Frame Series
Genre: Comment Fic, Community: fic_promptly, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Series, Pre-Relationship, Rare Pairing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-22
Updated: 2011-07-22
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elwing_alcyone/pseuds/Secret%20Staircase
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an attempt to get rid of the camera obscura, Kei goes to meet Yuu's cousin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Breathe Again

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**fic_promptly**](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/), for the prompt: _[Kei/Misaki, gasping for air](http://fic-promptly.dreamwidth.org/71587.html?thread=3537571&format=light#cmt3537571)_

Now it's Kei who can't stand the sight of the camera. Mafuyu's sister brings it round to his house, and for a moment it's just like being back in that choking darkness, the stone door crashing closed, the priestess's frozen hand on his neck. Miku must see some of that on his face, because she looks concerned.

"Rei thought you might want it back, but I understand if you don't."

"It just brings everything home. This is all too... too much. What do I do now, knowing..." He shakes his head. "I'm sorry. You and Rei must feel the same."

"Rei does," Miku says in her soft, serious voice, "but it's different for me. I've known about the spirit world all my life. Mafuyu did, too. And I suppose Yuu must have as well; it's his ancestor who invented the camera obscura, you know."

That makes Kei stand up straighter. "Really? I didn't know that."

"Actually, one of Yuu's relatives is going to be taking his antique collection and all his books. His cousin. She studies that sort of thing, so I'm sure she'd take this camera, too. I could write down her address, if you want it."

***

The woman's name is Misaki, and Kei does vaguely remember Yuu mentioning her once or twice. Miku has told her to expect Kei, and he's so eager to get rid of the camera obscura that he goes to see her at the earliest opportunity, without even calling first. If she's not in, he'll just leave the camera on her doorstep with a note.

But she is at home when he knocks on the door of her apartment, and once he's told her who he is, she lets him in.

He thinks she looks a little like Yuu – a distant resemblance, but a resemblance nonetheless, mostly in the way her mouth turns down at the corners. Her eyes are an unusual light grey, and when she looks at him her gaze is piercing, intense. She takes the box he holds out to her; he wants to tell her to wait until he's gone before she opens it, but she's already getting the camera out. Kei swallows and looks away as she turns it over in her hands, peers through the viewfinder, depresses the shutter button.

"Broken," she mutters. She removes the lens with a quick twist of her hand and holds it up to the light. "And this is all scratched and dusty."

"I found it – " Kei begins, but his mouth is dry, and his voice comes out as a bare whisper. He clears his throat and tries again. "I found it in a ruined house. I think it had been there a long time. If it's no good to you, just throw it away. I don't want it."

She gives him a brief, narrow-eyed glance. "No, I'll take it. There are probably some parts I can use."

 _Use?_ Kei thinks, but before he can ask what for, she's carried the camera over to a big glass-fronted cabinet he hasn't noticed before, and inside it are...

There's one thing that looks like a radio, another that looks like an ornate flashlight inlaid with mother-of-pearl, something else that looks like a clock with a blank face and a delicate silver pendulum. And there are cameras. There might be half a dozen, or more. Some of them are richly-decorated, others plain.

 _How many did he make?_ Kei thinks. _How many of them are waiting all over the country, waiting for someone – for me –_

Misaki's saying something – asking if he wants any money for it, he thinks – but there's a roaring in his ears, black spots swimming in front of his eyes, and he can't breathe. He's down there in darkness, drowning in darkness, and the priestess is coming.

There's a hand on his shoulder, and for a horrible moment he thinks it's _her_ , that the priestess has followed him out of his flashback. But the hand is warm and has a comforting weight, and instead of the priestess's cold breath, he can smell something clean and sharp and a little bit spicy: citrus, perhaps, and ginger. He lifts his head, and Misaki's sitting beside him.

 _Well,_ he thinks with a grimace, _if that was going to happen, I'm glad it happened in front of a stranger and not Mio._

"Sorry," he says. "I don't know what..."

"You've used one of those cameras before, haven't you?"

She said _used_ again. He remembers the way she handled the camera, the way she checked it for functionality, not display condition.

"You too?" he says, and she nods. She's taken her hand from his shoulder, but he can still feel where it was, warm.

"Tell me," she says, her voice quiet but firm. This isn't someone he needs to be strong for. She'll understand when he speaks of walking endless dark hallways, pursued by spirits that hungered for him and hated him; she will know of the cold he felt when they touched him, and what it is to find death waiting in some cavern where water flows, deep beneath the earth.

 _Tell me,_ she said. So Kei does.


End file.
